Mary+Rahn

On October 1, 1908, 21-year-old Mary Rahn died in a Chicago hospital from complications of an abortion performed that day. Mary was a Chicago native, a single woman who did housework for a living. She was the daughter of German immigrants. her father was a glassmaker, her mother a homemaker. She had three older brothers.

Midwife Frida Trappe was arrested and held by the coroner's jury on October 14. The case went to trial, but Trappe was acquitted on July 12 0f 1909. Trappe's employment status is recorded as "Outside labor force (incl. criminals)", which may be an indication that she was a professional lay abortionist.

During the first two thirds of the 20th Century, while abortion was still illegal, there was a massive drop in maternal mortality, including mortality from abortion. Most researches attribute this plunge to improvements in public health and hygiene, the development of blood transfusion techniques, and the introduction of antibiotics. Learn more [|here].



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Sources:
 * Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database
 * "Dies Shielding Guilty Ones," //Chicago Daily Tribune//, Oct. 3, 1908



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